OF SELBORNE 123 



spaniels, nay just at the muzzle of a gun that had been 

 fired at them : whether this strange laziness was the effect 

 of a recent fatiguing journey I shall not presume to say. 



Nightingales not only never reach Northumberland and 

 Scotland, but also, as I have been always told, Devonshire 

 and Cornwall. In those two last counties we cannot 

 attribute the failure of them to the want of warmth : the 

 defect in the west is rather a presumptive argument that 

 these birds come over to us from the continent at the 

 narrowest passage, and do not stroll so far westward. 



Let me hear from your own observation whether sky- 

 larks do not dust. I think they do : and if they do, 

 whether they wash also. 



The alauda pratensis of Ray was the poor dupe that was 

 educating the booby of a cuckoo mentioned in my letter 

 of October last. 



Your letter came too late for me to procure a ring-ousel 

 for Mr. Tunstal during their autumnal visit ; but I will 

 endeavour to get him one when they call on us again in 

 April. I am glad that you and that gentleman saw my 

 Andalusian birds ; I hope they answered your expectation. 

 Royston, or grey crows, are winter birds that come much 

 about the same time with the woodcock : they, like the 

 fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent reason for migra- 

 tion ; for as they fare in the winter like their congeners, 

 so might they in all appearance in the summer. Was not 

 Tenant, when a boy, mistaken ? did he not find a missel- 

 thrush's nest, and take it for the nest of a fieldfare ? 



The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, aenas Rail, is the last 

 winter bird of passage which appears with us ; and is not 

 seen till towards the end of November : about twenty 

 years ago they abounded in the district of Selborne ; and 

 strings of them were seen morning and evening that 

 reached a mile or more : but since the beechen woods 

 have been greatly thinned they are much decreased in 

 number. The ring-dove, palumbus Ran, stays with us the 

 whole year, and breeds several times through the summer. 



Before I received your letter of October last I had just 

 remarked in my journal that the trees were unusually green, 



